“Name your terms.”
“I don’t care about fame. Fortune is another thing. I’ll help you out if you make me an equal partner, but you can get all the credit on the official paper. Don’t expect a million bucks and a Nobel prize, meteorites are nothing special really. You might get a larger university or a research organization to give you several thousand dollars for it if it is particularly rare. All I’d ask for is my fair share of that money.”
“When can you come take a look?”
“How far north is it?”
“Three hours by car.”
“How about next Saturday?”
“How about now?” asked Ari.
“Now? I can’t go now. I have a lesson plan for tomorrow to finish. I have to feed my dog. What’s wrong with next weekend?”
“We have our friend Ray up there right now guarding the meteorite. We can’t risk somebody else finding it before we can claim it, since it’s on land owned by the state and anybody can stake a claim on it. It’s either you come with us now and help us determine what we’ve got, or we have to take turns missing work for an entire week guarding it.”
“What are the odds that somebody else will come across it?”
“Slim, but we already dug it up. That will be difficult to conceal and more obvious to somebody walking by. We can try moving it but we want to preserve the specimen, right?”
“We’d really appreciate your help,” said Ari. “If we’re wrong we’ll make it up to you. Your dog can come with us, that’s not a problem. Maybe, give him some wide open space to run around him that’s a bit safer than Somerville.”
Christie sat behind her desk. She regarded John and Ari with an expression that was not reassuring.
“All right. You have a deal. Suffolk isn't exactly making me rich on this salary.”
__________
Byron leaned against the outside of the science building, bracing himself against the wind that had risen up. So Christie met up with two old friends. He might be able to use that to his advantage later. How he might do this escaped him, but any information was good information at this stage.
Byron’s trip to Somerville was a complete waste of time. He couldn’t find Christie’s street to save his life, and ended up with good pair of blisters from all the wandering around. He would have to use a more direct approach. Byron figured with enough people on the street and in the subway that he could follow Christie undetected. Hence the hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses he had.
The front door of the science building opened, and three people stepped out. Byron turned his head just enough to confirm that it was Christie and her two friends. They took a left on Derne Street.
“I’m parked on Cambridge,” said the man.
Byron waited until the three had made another left, this time onto Temple Street. He then headed after them. He turned onto Temple and found himself about twenty yards behind them. He matched their pace.
Christie wasn’t speaking to the other two. Byron found that odd considering they’d just become reacquainted after years apart. The other two people flanked Christie, walking just behind her. If Byron didn’t know better he’d think Christie was being escorted somewhere.
Byron slowed down a bit when they hit Cambridge Street. When he rounded the corner, he saw Christie being led into a black Ford Expedition. The weirdest thing was that the man looked both ways down the street before getting in. He didn’t seem to see Byron. The engine roared to life, and Byron struggled to remember the license plate before the Ford rolled down the street and out of sight.
9.
Ari pressed down on the gas pedal and was pleased with the results. Ray’s Ford was a nice piece of gear, and it kicked the crap out of her minivan. John sat next to her in the passenger seat, flirting with sleep. After they’d picked up Tycho, John had asked Ari to take a turn at the wheel. Ari was glad she did.
While Christie was inside her apartment, Ari and John took turns calling in sick to work. Ari had no idea how this would effect John, but in her case it would doubtless piss off more than a few people. Considering the circumstances, Ari would have been just as happy to quit entirely.
Christie was silent in the back seat, save for the occasional reassuring comment to Tycho, who didn’t seem to need them. Ari didn’t care for dogs, but this one seemed well-mannered enough. Christie must bathe the thing pretty regularly since Ari couldn’t remember ever smelling a dog that didn’t remind her of an outhouse. Perhaps living in a small apartment was a greater reason for keeping up on canine grooming.
The plan was to have Christie back in Somerville by ten that night. John and Ari expected Christie to cancel her class tomorrow as soon as she found out about the orb; for now they were content to let her believe she’d be back the same day. The only things Christie brought were a book on meteorites, a can of dog food, and a plastic bag for other sundry uses. Ari figured they had enough food to sustain the four of them for at least one more day. If things got really interesting they could always go to the store in Fairlee for more supplies.
“Ari,” said Christie.
“Yeah?”
“You know how you said you thought that the meteorite could have come from a comet from the Magellanic Cloud?”
“Uh huh.”
“Are you sure you weren’t thinking of the Oort Cloud?”
“I don’t know. From what John said, we were looking for a system or a galaxy or something.”
“The Oort Cloud is thought to be the source of comets in our solar system.”
“I see. Maybe that’s what we were really looking for. John seems to be asleep but you can ask him later.”
“Right.”
Ari raised an eyebrow. That was a lucky coincidence, both things being called clouds. Ari had been ready to get Christie into the truck by threat of force, their original plan having failed so miserably. John would never go that far, of course. Ari looked at him. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and was starting to look a bit like Indiana Jones. Ari thought it was kind of neat. Then John started to drool.
“John, wake up,” she said.
“Huh? What?”
“We’re getting close to Ray’s exit. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have two vehicles at this point?”
“I guess so. That wouldn’t leave anyone tied to the cabin should the Ford be needed elsewhere. Sure, head over to Ray’s. I’ll pick up my car and follow you two up.”
“I thought you said you lived in Woburn,” said Christie.
“I do, but my car was left at Ray’s place in Manchester when we left for the cabin on Friday.”
“Oh.”
Ari hit the turn signal and began to exit the highway. So far, she liked Christie. She seemed to be strong willed and smart, which was good for figuring out the orb but bad for manipulating her. Their story about being duplicitous out of greed had worked, so Ari was trying to relax. It was unknown how Christie would react to their lies. Hopefully the revelation of their “meteorite” would provide sufficient reason for forgiveness. If not, what then? Would Christie go running to the authorities? They could kidnap her, but John and Ray would never stand for it. Ari began to regret her enthusiasm for bringing Christie along. She could really screw things up. Ari decided to test the waters.
“Hey Christie,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“This whole meteorite business has got me thinking. What do you think about life on other planets?”
“I hope it’s true.”
“Me, too, but how do you think we’ll find out about it? I mean, what’s the most likely way that we’ll establish contact?”
“I think the most likely way that we’ll find out about intelligent aliens won’t be contact, strictly. I think that if we receive any transmission from outer space, they’ll be so old that whoever sent them will be long dead. It’s just not possible for a transmission to cross such a vast distance in a short enough amount of time.”
“Why not? Can’t there theoretically be
some sort of transmission that approaches the speed of light?”
“Well, the best transmission medium would be light itself. You could modulate a laser beam in such a way as to transmit binary code, for instance. But you’d still be limited by the speed of light itself, which is 186,000 miles per second. Proxima Centauri is the closest star, and that’s still four light years away. It would take eight years just to have a two sentence conversation with someone there. The Alpha Centauri system is, by the way, a likely candidate for life, even though we haven’t yet found any planets there.”
“Okay, what about being visited by actual aliens?”
“The problem again is how to cross such vast distances. Conventional methods create time dilation, part of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. As an object’s speed increases, so does it’s mass. The faster it goes, the more energy is required to keep it moving. It also creates time dilation, so time passes more slowly for the object than the rest of the universe relative to it. If a ship leaves Earth, achieves say three-quarters light speed, then comes back, hundreds of years could have passed on Earth. The trip did, in fact, take hundreds of years, only the crew is lucky enough to survive it. I forget the exact measurements.”
“That’s okay.”
“To actually travel in space with any usefulness, you’d have to circumvent normal space entirely. You’d have to beat the system, so to speak, so that time dilation didn’t effect you. I have my own theories on how that might be possible, but we're still probably decades if not centuries away from finding a method that actually works. Science fiction television and movies have provided their own theories of faster-than-light travel. All of them would require massive amounts of energy to work.”
“We’ve been beaming out transmissions for years,” said John. “Wouldn’t we have heard back from Alpha Centauri by now if there was an industrialized civilization there?”
“One would hope so. If there is one, they’re either ignoring us or responding in a way that we can’t interpret yet. They might be jumping up and down in a television studio shouting ‘look over here,’ but we’re not tuned to the right channel. That’s what SETI is doing, they’re looking for intelligent patterns of radio signals received here on Earth.”
“What if,” began Ari, “aliens sent some sort of object to Earth at sub-light speed? It may not get here for hundreds of years but at least we’d know they exist.”
“I suppose that’s possible, as long as their only goal was to let themselves be known. It might be meant as a way of kicking humanity in the ass about developing better space technology.”
“If that object ended up in the United States, what would happen?”
“What do you mean?”
John began glaring at Ari. She caught the expression out of the corner of her eye, and ignored the intended message.
“I mean who would study it?”
“Well, NASA probably. The CIA or some other agency might want to keep it a secret, to prevent panic or to avoid it being stolen or sabotaged. There are a lot of people who think this has already happened. Look at the Roswell story.”
“Do you believe that story?”
“Not really. It seems to me that given fifty-five or so years since it happened there would be something else to look at, or another event or point of contact. I can hardly believe the government could do that good of a job covering up something of that significance.”
“Ari, are you sure you know how to get there?” asked John abruptly.
“I think so.”
“You’d better pay attention. There are a couple of blind corners we have to take.”
“As you wish.”
Ten minutes later, John was following the Ford back on Route 93. He was able to pull Ari aside for a moment when they stopped, and tell her to stop her line of questioning with Christie. It may have seemed like idle banter, but they couldn’t risk Christie suspecting any more until they arrived. Ari had rolled her eyes and agreed to change the subject. John was starting to wonder if bringing Christie along was such a good idea. What if she freaked out and ran away? They could hardly kidnap her over this.
John threw a CD into the stereo and tried to concentrate on driving. He had catnapped in the Ford but it seemed to do little for him. John really wished he could further mitigate Ari’s conversation topics, finding himself short on faith that she would avoid anything too revealing.
John concentrated on the test presented by Seth. He suspected that Umber was located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and that was the answer to the riddle. He was hoping that if a more precise answer was required that Christie could provide it. She seemed familiar with it, at least enough to name two of it’s features. John wondered how to present this information to Seth. Could they simply show him the book? Did they have to point it out on a chart? Did they have to provide the stellar coordinates?
John began to accept the fact that the orb might be a job for NASA after all. Who were they to jeopardize something this important to humanity?
The truly terrifying thing was the prospect of being taken back to Seth’s homeworld. John didn’t find the prospect of being transported across thousands of light years particularly appealing. Besides, what he knew about the Heisenberg principle made that impossible. Then again, there was the orb, sitting in the New Hampshire woods. Even if the orb could find willing volunteers, what good could humans, with their current level of technology, do for the Umberians?
John realized that he’d left his pipe at the cabin, and what he really needed was a good smoke. It always helped him think, and nicotine was handy for staying awake. If it had occurred to him, he would have asked Ari for one of her clove cigarettes.
It was going to be a long two hours.
The time approached one in the afternoon, and Ray was starting to think about lunch. He was sitting on the front steps of the cabin, smoking his pipe. This habit he shared with John, but much less frequently than his friend. Ray preferred aromatic tobaccos, which smelled wonderful. It also tasted like recycled crap, a fact that caused Ray to prefer his pipe with an alcoholic beverage of some type. At this moment, though, he felt like alcohol would be too much of a crutch for dealing with what was going on. Ray had chosen cola instead.
It had been about an hour since the last time Ray had checked on the orb. Nothing had changed. As John and Ari had said, it was barely visible in the daylight. Ray wondered if they could access it at all during the day. Somehow working with it at night seemed more appropriate, if more daunting.
Ray was worried about their conversations with the thing known as Seth. The last few times it spoke it sounded more authoritarian. If it was learning their language, then eventually it would be able to make demands. If they lost control over it, that would be a whole new ball game. The thought was not comforting.
An approaching sound made Ray’s heart leap into his throat. An instant later he realized it was a vehicle. He was tempted to go get a weapon. If it was a stranger, however, that might give the wrong impression. Then again, nobody but John and Ari had any reason to come up their road.
The Ford appeared while Ray was still debating his choices. He was relieved to see them; the last few hours had not been very much fun. Ray was not surprised to see John’s car as well, that was a move that made sense. What surprised Ray was the additional woman and a wolf that jumped out of the truck. He stood up straight, almost dropping his pipe.
“Hello, Ray,” said Ari.
“What’s all this?” asked Ray, unabashedly confused.
“This is Christie Tolliver. She’s the assistant professor of astronomy at Suffolk University.”
“I remember you,” said Christie. “You were in the same class as the rest of us, senior year. I was the teacher’s assistant for Astronomy 101.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t remember you,” said Ray.
John closed his car door and headed over. “Professor Tolliver is here to take a look at the meteorite, Ray.”
“The m
eteor... oh... oh! Right, the meteorite.”
Ari placed her hand on her forehead, out of view of Christie.
“Call me Christie. Don’t worry about your cut of the profit, by the way. The others and I have already come to an agreement.”
“What do you mean, my cut of the profit?” Ray said, grinning around his pipe. “I’m getting a cut?”
“So, where is this thing?”
“Why don’t you tie Tycho to the cabin?” said John. “He can run around later.”
“Okay.”
Christie tied Tycho’s leash to one of the cabin’s supports. John motioned towards the woods.
“Right this way. Are you coming, Ray?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll be right there,” said Ari, and went inside the cabin.
“Don’t be long!” John said.
John led the group into the woods. Tycho barked at them. Ari came running over before they arrived at the orb. The woods were filled with the sound of birds, a welcome addition over last night’s eerie silence. They filed into the clearing. John stopped.
“Well, what are we looking for?” asked Christie.
“You’re looking at it,” said Ari.
“What?”
Christie looked around. She shrugged in annoyed frustration and was about to say something when she caught a glimpse of the orb out of the corner of her eye. Christie squinted.
“Did you guys see some...”
The orb became fully visible. Christie cleared about six vertical inches, inhaling sharply.
“Oh my God!” she screamed.
Ari smiled. “Welcome to the fold.”
10.
Birds fled into the air in search of a quieter place. Christie stumbled backwards until her arms found a tree. She pressed herself up against the bark.
“What the hell is this?” she said breathlessly. “What's going on?”
“It’s okay,” said John.
“This is what we wanted you to see,” said Ray.
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